N & L
by Fairylust
Summary: AU. One-shot. Young Nate wakes to find his life will never be the same. His family is dead and gone. But L will be there for him. Renamed Near for a reason.


**Just a short story I thought about while I was listening to some Era music.**

**One-shot.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, but I think it'd be awesome if I did.**

**;^P**

**~Fairylust~**

* * *

It was late at night when it all happened. At least ten or eleven p.m.

"No! Please!" a boy who was 13 begged. "Mom!"

"Stop!" a boy who was 17 yelled. His dark hair matted to his forehead. He reeked of gasoline. "Mom, please, stop it!"

"Mommy no!" a 10 year old boy wailed.

"Mary! Mary don't do this!" a man who was 31 years old plead. "Mary stop! You aren't thinking straight!"

A baby wailed as it was placed on a coffee table across from the three boys. Unknowing of what was about to happen an 18 year old girl, 5 year old girl and an 8 year old dark-eyed, albino boy slept peacefully upstairs. Their mother had gone insane and she was about to show how much she hated her family. She headed upstairs and silently locked her youngest son's bedroom door. She covered the carpets and hardwood floors with gasoline and papers. The woman found a family portrait and smashed it feeling enraged.

She then heard groaning from her daughter's room. The girl came out looking about confused. She smelt gas and had a headache from the smell. The girl wandered downstairs and was horrified by what she saw, but before she could help her bound family members something hit the back of her head.

Hard.

Her mother grinned as she dropped the heavy metal curling iron. She laughed a crazed laugh as she lit a match and then dropped it onto the floor. She watched as everything ignited and then walked out the fromt door, which she locked once outside. Dropping the housekey in the dirt she walked off a few paces before watched as the house burnt. A young girl, who was 5, sat on the roof crying and screaming. She had crawled out through her broken window and was screaming for help.

"Jump!" the woman yelled. "Jump Sarah! Jump! I'll catch you." she promised. The girl jumped, but the woman let her fall and smash her head open on the ground.

Blood pooled beneath her split skull.

Smoke was everywhere. There were loud horrified screams from downstairs. They were horrible wails of agony that the small boy would never forget. Nate River sat on his bed crying as the house around him crumbled. His tears spilled down his cheeks like two streams of water. He got up and goes to his bedroom window and saw his mother standing on the front lawn smiling over the dead body of his younger sister. She had started the fire to kill her family, he knew. The windows were all nailed shut. Nate's bedroom door was locked. All he could do was sit on his bed and hug his two toys close to his chest.

Helpless. That was what he was.

He wailed loudly as the flames licked at his pale flesh. Men and sirens rang outside. There were gunshots. Slowly, one by one, screams faded and so did the pleas and begging. Nate wailed loudly. He was alone and afraid. Nate River had been abandoned, to die, by the one woman he loved and trusted more than any other person in the world. Tears came faster and faster. Ash and smoke clogged his lungs making them burn.

Nate heard yelling outside his bedroom door just before he lost consciousness. Then the door came open. A fireman scooped the small boy's body up. Nate was in a fetal position and looked like he was sleeping with his toys clutched to his chest. The boy woke up as he realized he was being carried down burning stairs.

He saw his father's dead, burnt corpse lying on what used to be the kitchen table his hands had been tied up by chains. His three elder brothers lay dead on the living room floor. They had been tied up and drenched by gasoline. Nate saw his elder sister's body lying just inches from the front door. And his baby sister's body lay on the coffee table. She had been only an infant.

His mother's lifeless, bloodied body lay on the ground filled by bullets. The tears came faster and faster. He clutched at the man wanting to hold onto someone for support. Medics pried him from the man and examined him. He wailed loudly the whole time. Nate screamed his heart out and cried until he couldn't cry anymore.

He spent the next few nights in the hospital being checked and rechecked for diseases or infections from the fire. Nate had nightmares and couldn't sleep so the staff held him down and forced him to take drugs that would help him sleep. Then one night a strange teen came by to visit him. This teen was Nate's first visitor. He looked strange, but Nate didn't mind. He didn't mind anything anymore, since he was normally drugged out of his mind. Tears slipped down his face as he looked at the teen. He looked so much like…like…like his elder brother, Drake. It hurt him to remember his deceased relatives.

"My name is L," the teen said wiping the tears from Nate's face. "I wish to help you." The small boy looked to him puzzled. "I am your only next of kin." L explained. "Therefore, I want you to come home with me. I'll make things better."

Nate nodded. He trusted this teen and knew that things would get better.

"L."

"Yes?"

"I hurt."

"Where?"

"It's always hurting here." Nate whispered as he touched his chest where his heart was. he wondered what it had meant, but since L was there he figured that maybe he'd be able to tell him. "Perhaps, I can make it stop." L said with a small smile. "How?" he asked with widened eyes. L smiled and stroked the boy's soft white curls. He looked so angelic and so innocent.

"I'll be your best friend and I will care for you for as long as you stay with me."

Nate liked the sound of that. "Okay, but I don't want you to call me Nate. It hurts my chest to think of my name anymore. And it hurts my head to think about it."

"It is only greif." L said softly. "You will get over it. I know."

"You've hurt too?"

L nodded.

Nate smiled. "I think I'll call you, Near from now on." L said as he watched the small boy lower his eyelids sleepily. Near fell into a deep sleep that was dreamless. "Do you know why?" L asked the sleeping boy in a whisper. "Because you'll always be near my heart." With that said the teen went to sign Near out of the hospital, so that they could start their new lives together.

He was secretly excited as he knew that both he and Near would be close from then on out.


End file.
